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Mukherjee Appointed as New DAAD President

At the beginning of 2020 Professor Joybrato Mukherjee, President of Giessen’s Justus Liebig University, will move to head the world’s largest organisation for academic exchanges.

21.06.2019
Mukherjee with predecessor Wintermantel and Vice President Helbig
Mukherjee with predecessor Wintermantel and Vice President Helbig © Michael Jordan

At their meeting in June 2019 in Bonn representatives of the 241 member universities and 104 student bodies in the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) voted by a large majority to appoint Professor Joybrato Mukherjee, President of Giessen’s Justus Liebig University as their new President. At the beginning of 2020 he will replace Professor Margret Wintermantel. New Vice President will be Dr. Muriel Helbig, President of Lübeck University of Applied Sciences.

Born in the Rhineland, Mukherjee studied English, Biology and Education at RWTH Aachen University and in 1997 was successfully awarded his teaching diploma. The son of Indian immigrants went on to receive a Master’s in 1999, before gaining a doctorate in English Linguistics from the University of Bonn one year later. It was there that in 2003 that he gained his habilation and venia legendi.

In 2004, Mukherjee was appointed Professor for English Linguistics at the University of Giessen. From 2008 to 2009, he was First Vice President of the University. In 2009, he was nominated President of the University, making him the youngest at the time in Germany, and in 2015 he was reappointed. That same year he was also reappointed as Vice President of the DAAD – an office he has held since 2012.

The DAAD is an organisation of German universities and their students that promotes efforts to internationalise academic systems. It maintains a network of over 70 offices outside Germany, supports some 440 lecturers teaching German worldwide and in 2018 its services (including EU programmes) assisted around 145,000 Germans and non-Germans around the globe. This makes the DAAD the largest organisation for academic exchange worldwide.

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